Fleeing Customer Rescued From Sea

LAUDERDALE-BY-THE-SEA -- Lunch and a few drinks landed Joe Gorman in jail on Monday, all because he dived into the Atlantic Ocean to elude police rather than pay a $7 tab, officers said.

Gorman, 38, of Jensen Beach, was arrested after being fished from the ocean about 300 yards off Fort Lauderdale, nearly a mile south of where he plunged into the water, police said.

``The surf was real heavy. I thought he was going to drown out there,`` said Carie Tripi, a bartender at the restaurant that Gorman fled. ``Now that it`s all over, it`s comical. Not for him, though.``

Tripi said that Gorman, who has been to the restaurant before, walked into the Wharf Seaside Tavern about 1 p.m. and ordered a bowl of soup. About 20 minutes and few drinks later, he tried to leave the restaurant with an open drink, she said.

``He`s telling these people, `I do it all the time. The cops aren`t going to bother you around here,` `` Tripi said.

Tripi threatened to call the police if Gorman left the restaurant, then left the bar as if she were going to make the call, she said.

She returned to find Gorman leaving the restaurant without paying his $7 tab, she said.

Tripi, after discovering that she could not call the police because the restaurant telephone was out of order, ran after Gorman and knocked the drink from his hand, she said.

``I told him, `Just give me the money,` `` Tripi said.

Gorman offered her $2, then hit her in the face as the two argued over how much he owed, she said.

Manager/owner Tom Stephanis then came from the restaurant and chased Gorman onto the nearby fishing pier, where Gorman climbed down scaffolding being used by a construction crew there, Tripi said.

When Lauderdale-by-the-Sea police arrived, they tried to talk Gorman into climbing back up onto the pier, officer Rick Shawver said.

Gorman refused and began to verbally abuse the officers, Shawver said.

``Just then we heard a big splash,`` Shawver said.

The officers called Fort Lauderdale officials, then began following Gorman south along the beach, he said.

Gorman was caught by two Fort Lauderdale lifeguards about 300 yards off the coast, near the 4100 block of Galt Ocean Mile, after spending about an hour and a half swimming, Shawver said.

Gorman was charged with battery, defrauding a restaurant, fleeing and eluding a police officer, and resisting arrest without violence, police said.